There is one of her while she was pregnant – with Rose, I suspect – doing the traditional side-on pose to show off her bump, and pictures of her and our father with us as newborns. I’ve never seen these before – only the ones that show her alone with us – and again, it’s a melancholy thing.
It should have been the happiest time of their lives, but on the one with me especially, Rose’s podgy face beaming away next to my bald head, Mum just looks so tired. Defeated. Like some of the life has been sucked out of her. Dad’s even smoking in that one, and I am amazed at the thought of people being able to puff away on maternity wards.
The bulk of the photos, though, are of us. Me and Rose as kids, a full range of time-machine snapshots: holidays in Dorset and paddling pools in the garden and walks with Patch and first days at school and Christmas plays and birthdays with number balloons doing their floaty helium dance above our heads.
I recognise our different stages, and it feels odd, like looking at a picture montage of somebody else’s life. There are blessedly few of me as Spotty Poppy, because I’d learned to avoid cameras like the Artful Dodger by that time, and not so many once we were older – when we were both off at university.
She has, wisely, edited Gareth out of existence, and the last one of us all together was taken months before that hellish night at Disco 2000. We’d both come home for Mum’s birthday, and she’d asked a waiter in the restaurant to take a photo of all three of us. The last-century version of me is looking a little sullen, and Rose is smiling and radiant.
Mum, of course, looks wonderful. Being a professional poser, it was hard to catch her unawares in a bad position, but this one is especially lovely. She’d been asked for her autograph while we were out, which had made her particularly smug, and she just looks so happy, squashed there between the two of us.
The change after that is sudden, and devastating. There are pictures of Joe as a baby, pictures of her and Rose, pictures of her and me. But never any of us all together. As we root through them all, oohing and aahing and laughing, it is one of my biggest regrets that we never added to her collection. To her stash of memories of us together, healed and whole and strong. She deserved more than we gave her, so much more.
We can’t change that now, but we can at the very least create our own Wonderwall – she’s even left us two pairs of scissors and a giant packet of Blu-Tack to make it easy on us.
After a brief debate on how to organise it – chronological, in order of size, in a square or in a spiral – the gin makes the final decision, and we simply both start cutting and sticking pictures on the wall at random.
One of Joe ends up next to one of Lewis dressed as Hamlet; one of Rose as a teenager ends up next to Mum on the beach in a bikini; one of Patch ends up juxtaposed with one of our grandmother staring silently into the lens; one of Rose’s graduation is flush with my Mum and Elvis.
By the time we are finished, much of the wall is covered. It will probably look bloody awful in the morning, but to two drunk ladies, it is an awesome creation of stylish design.
We stand back and admire our handiwork, making complimentary comments about each other’s choices, and it strikes me how far we’ve come. How far Mum has brought us. When we started this whole thing – this A–Z madness – we could barely stand to be in the same room as each other. Even at our own mother’s funeral.
And now? All these letters later; after all the road trips and arguments and bad karaoke and treasure hunts and brutal, tear-jerking honesty, we can stand side by side, and I can say to Rose ‘you were the fattest baby in the world’ without it starting another round of hostilities. Our Wonderwall is truly wonderful.
We take a few more snapshots on our phones, vowing to get them printed out along with our Eiffel Tower shots so we can add to the collection, and then stand back and look at it all some more. We even take photos of the photos, we’re so pleased with it.
Rose is staring at one particular picture with a frown on her face. I follow her line of vision, and see that it is of Mum and Lewis, on Stapeley Hill. It’s obviously been taken by Lewis holding his long arms out, a senior-citizen version of a selfie, and they are both grinning like very naughty children.
‘We should invite him over,’ says Rose, biting her lip. ‘I mean – look at them. He was such a good friend to her. He was with her when she died, and he helped her arrange all of this, and now he’s alone. He doesn’t seem to have family, definitely not any kids, and now he doesn’t even have our mum. She’d want us to look after him, don’t you think?’
I nod, and look at all the photos of Lewis that are scattered over our Wonderwall. There are more of him and his dog than our grandparents and our father combined.
‘You’re right. We should. Maybe we could try and cook him something. Or at the very least get a Chinese in and some plonk. On the A–Z list, X is for Movie Night. I know that could mean anything in Mum’s universe, but maybe we could ask him round for that.’
‘As long as it’s not X for X-rated movie night, and Mum doesn’t have a whole sideline in adult films she never mentioned to us …’
I shudder, physically, at the very thought, and hope that’s not true. Seeing our mother’s bare bum on a carousel horse was quite enough, thank you, without discovering she was also known as Peaches McMuff or Trixie-Belle Nipples as well. Although they do sound like they’d make interesting characters in my new book.
‘I’ll text him now,’ I say, ‘while we’re too drunk to change our minds.’
Chapter 67
Rose
Lewis enters the cottage with his dog, the famous springer spaniel Betty. Or at least I feel as if she’s famous now, after sticking so many pictures of her up on the Wonderwall.
She’s a beautiful old lady, with huge, round brown eyes and rust-red colouring on her soft white fur. As soon as she is through the door, she scampers around, ears back, sniffing the air, as though she is furiously searching for something.
Or, I think sadly, someone. Poor Betty is on the list of creatures who are desperately missing Andrea Barnard, purveyor of fine A–Zs and even finer sausages. Eventually, she seems to give up, and jumps on to the sofa, where she circles three times before settling into a ball with her muzzle tucked beneath her tail.
‘Ah,’ says Lewis, presenting me with a bottle of wine that looks far too good to accompany the roast dinner that we’ve managed to produce in his honour, ‘she’s looking for her, isn’t she? I must admit that I find myself doing the exact same thing with alarming frequency.’
‘I’d like to see you curl up in a ball with your nose touching your tail, Lewis,’ replies Poppy, standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek to take any potential sting out of her words.
‘Alas yes, I think those days are behind me … anyway. I was delighted to receive your invitation to movie night, ladies, although knowing a bit more about it than you, also slightly concerned.’
‘Yeah. I think we all are,’ I reply, looking at the contents of our A–Z package for the letter X. It is in two parts – a bundle of DVDs, and a huge dice, the type people would use for games in the garden.
